Canadian candour on race and culture Robert Henderson reviews the Fraser Institute’s Effects of Mass Immigration on Canadian Living Standards and Society

Edited by Herbert Grubel – a compilation of essays by 12 authors

Published by the Fraser Institute of Canada in 2009 ISBN 978-0-88975-246-7

Massive numbers of immigrants who are either unable or unwilling to integrate with the society into which they come; cities increasingly dominated by ethnic and racial ghettos; laws which grant immigrants rights which make it next to impossible to stop them entering the country or to deport them once they are there; employers greedy for cheap labour; immigrants depressing wages and forcing up native unemployment; immigrants taking more out of the communal national pot in benefits than they put in through taxes; a political elite which is sold on the idea that immigration is an unalloyed good at a naïve best and a source of new voters for parties which support mass immigration at a venal worst; a bureaucracy which religiously carries out the politically correct dictates of the elite embraced multicultural ethos ; the development of an “immigration industry” comprised of vested interests such as lawyers, pressure groups, charities; public servants appointed to act as what are effectively political commissars for multiculturalism; a mainstream media which ceaselessly propagandises on behalf of the wonder of multiculturalism and value of immigration whilst censoring any opposition; a rabid state-inspired suppression of dissidence at any level by a mixture of laws banning honest discussion of immigration and its consequences and the engendering of a public culture which puts anyone who voices anti-immigration views, however cautiously, at risk of losing their job or political position and to ostracism from their social circle if they are judged to have committed a “crime” against multiculturalism.

Welcome to the Canadian experience of the joy of mass immigration. Sounds familiar? It certainly will to British ears, but the same could broadly be said of any First World country for the globalist ideology has become the creed of elites throughout the First World. This makes the book generally valuable as a primer on the dangers of mass immigration. This utility is enhanced by significant reference being made to immigration as it affects the USA, Britain and France.

There are of course differences of detail between the Canadian and British experience. Canadians traditionally have seen themselves as a nation of immigrants whereas the British have not and do not. This means that Canadians have, like Americans, at least the residue of the sentimental idea that immigration should be the natural order of things and that it is somehow wrong to deny to others what they or their ancestors enjoyed. The Canadian elite have taken this to extremes according to Stephen Gallagher of the Canadian International Council because “….more than any other country Canada has bought into the cosmopolitan logic that there can exist a ‘civic nationalism in the absence of any ethnic or cultural majority, shared roots or social coherence” (p188). His claim is borne out by the objective evidence of modern Canadian immigration policy and its consequences.

The problem with the “civic nationalism” mentality is it is one thing to have immigration consisting overwhelmingly of people who are broadly similar in race and culture into the receiving society – as happened throughout most of Canada’s history -who can assimilate rapidly; quite another to import immigrants in large numbers who are radically different in race and culture and either cannot or will not assimilate. That is what has happened to Canada in recent decades.

Over the past quarter of a century immigrants to Canada have come overwhelmingly from Asia. The result is that at the last Canadian census 5 million (16 per cent) out of the Canadian population of 16 million were “visible minorities” (p5). The size of the overall population also counts hugely: 16 per cent of 33 million is considerably more concerning than 16 per cent of, say, Britain’s currently estimated 62 million.

It might be thought that the geographical vastness of Canada would mean there is not the same sense that the country is being physically swamped as there is in a geographically small country such as Britain, but Canada is a very urbanised country with 25 million Canadians living in towns or cities and most immigrants are concentrated in a few places. 60 per cent of the 5 million “visible minorities” live in the Metropolitan areas of Toronto and Vancouver (p5). In Toronto in 2001 those classified as “English (Anglos ) “only formed a majority in in a quarter of metropolitan “census tracts” (p180). The sense of conquest by stealth is as apparent in those particular places as it would be in London or Birmingham.

Reckless Canadian immigration took off in the 1990s. In 1990 the annual limit was raised to 250,000 by a Progressive Conservative government with the Minister responsible, Barbara McDougal, arguing that this would help the party with the ethnic minority vote, the clear implication being that a large portion of the additional immigrants would be black or Asian (p4). Since then immigration has averaged nearly 1 per cent of the population (p4. )Things worsened after the 2001 Immigration and Refugee Protection Act was passed. This set selection criteria for immigrants without putting any limit on the numbers who could come in. As there were vastly more people who could meet the criteria than Canada could readily accommodate and there was no flexibility to adjust to changes in economic conditions generally or to the Canadian labour market in particular, the system soon ran into trouble. A backlog of would-be immigrants waiting to be processed formed which is estimated to reach 1.5 million by 2012 (p7) to which did not include refugees who number is considerable. Canadian asylum policy became so lax in the 1980s that over the past 25 years more than 700,000 asylum seekers were admitted (p14). Canada has taken steps to amend the Immigration Act,, but even if those are effective the existing backlog of 1.5 million will be processed under the old rules (p5).

All but one the most sacred cows of the pro-immigration, pro-multicultural lobby are precisely dissected before being put out of their misery. Overall, immigrants do not add to Canada’s per capita wealth (p104), not least because less than 20% of immigrants come in based on their work skills or training (p3); cultural diversity does not equal an enhanced society but a divided one with an ever weakening national identity and bringing in huge numbers of young immigrants will not solve the problem of an ageing Canadian population – Robert Bannerjee and William Robson (chapter 7) estimate that to even stabilise the Old Age Dependency ratio – the ratio between those of working age to those over retirement age – and those from what it is at present would take decades of annual immigration amounting each year to 3% of the Canadian population (p142). The effect of that would be to effectively end any concept of a Canadian nation as it has been and still largely is. It would be a classic case of the transformation of quantity into quality. A place called Canada might still exist but he existing Canadian nation would be no more.

The sacred cow which remains standing if more than a little nervous, is the question of the incompatibility of races. Nonetheless , some of the contributors (especially those in chapters 9-12) come close to venturing onto this currently forbidden territory, for example :-

“..the analysis of Sammuel Huntingdon (2004), who argues that a nation is the function of the identity of its majority population and in the United States this identity is rooted in the original founding Anglo-Protestant culture and a value system described as the American Creed.” (Stephen Gallagher P188).

“What guarantee do we have that diversity in itself is a desirable objective? At what point does diversity mutate into a form of colonisation? (James Bissett p6).

The book is also good at flagging up consequences which are not immediately obvious. For example, Marcel Merette makes the important point that as higher skilled immigrants increase the differential in wages between the skilled and the unskilled shrinks (p159). This discourages Canadians from taking the trouble to acquire skills because the advantage of doing so would be lessened.

Nor is any change in the type of immigrants without ill consequences. For example, if immigrants are restricted to the young (which might be thought a god thing in an ageing society) that disadvantages the native young because it means they face greater competition for jobs from the immigrants in their age group.

There is also the effect on the one long-standing substantial Canadian minority, the French-speaking Quebeccers . They are increasingly finding their language and culture undermined both by the presence of immigrants who will not integrate and by having to compete for attention and privileges from the majority population with the new minority groups.

Rather touchingly, Gordon Gibson (chapter 11) imagines that the position is much healthier in Britain because there is at least growing public discussion here and an organisation such as MigrationWatch UK to ostensibly provide a focus of concern about immigration (the final essay in the book is by the head of MigrationWatch UK Sir Andrew Green). But public debate can be not merely useless but positively harmful if it is controlled.

It is true that there is vastly more public discussion in Britain now than there was under the Blair Government when any many of immigration and its consequences brought squeals of “racism” from politicians, the left-liberal dominated media and any pressure group or individual able to climb onto the “anti-racist” bandwagon. But public discussion does not equal action and despite Cameron’s Coalition Government’s rhetoric about cutting net immigration to Britain “from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands a year” , the numbers remain much the same as under the Blair and Brown governments.

The extent of the growing disquiet amongst Canadians is indicated by the very existence of the book. The editor has brought together a wide-ranging group of contributors: economists, political scientists, think tank members and retired ambassadors. These are not the class of people who would commonly be found publicly expressing concern about immigration, for they are by background part of the broad elite which has embraced the multiculturalist ideal. That they are willing to write pretty forthrightly about the dangers speaks volumes in itself. The message it sends is that they are so worried by the observable effects of mass migration that they are willing to put their heads above the parapet and risk, at the least, social, political and academic ostracisation.

The failure to address the question of race as a social separator is frustrating but understandable in the present politically correct circumstances, but it cannot be ignored forever. Those who say physical differences in race are unimportant and that race is merely a social construct should reflect upon the fact that if there was no natural mechanism to stop humans of different physical types breeding as freely together as those of a similar physical type then there would be no broad physical groups which we call races . These group separations cannot be ascribed to humans evolving in separation from one another because throughout history there has been an immense amount of movement of peoples with every opportunity for inter-breeding. We see the same thing happening today in places such as London where, despite the open invitation to inter-racial breeding and the incessant multi-culturist propaganda over several generations, a surprisingly small percentage of the population does interbreed.

I can unreservedly recommend this book because it provides almost all the ammunition needed to refute the multiculturalist propaganda . It is not the easiest of reads because most of the contributors take an academic approach, which means a fair number of charts and tables plus a decent dollop of jargon. But the book is not very heavy going and its message is the most important which can be given to the developed world at present: guard your own societies against this surreptitious form of conquest or they will die.